Posts by Glen 1

Rookie's code couldn't have been so terrible that it made a supermarket spontaneously combust... right?

=1 could be an assignment...

Valheim: How the heck has more 'indie shovelware with PS2 graphics' sold 4 million copies in a matter of weeks?

Obligatory Factorio recommendation here. I have heard good things about SatisFactory, but not played it myself.

When you sink hundreds of hours into a game, it limits the number you can do justice.

Can we exhale yet? EU set to rule UK 'adequate' for data sharing in post-Brexit GDPR move

Re: "For now, those fears seem unfounded..."

"they are walling themselves off. "

They are walling *us* off from *their* money FTFY

Apple iOS 14.5 will hide Safari users' IP addresses from Google's Safe Browsing

Re: Tor, DNSCrypt, etc.

There are several open source distros for phones.

The limiting factors are drivers and getting the phone to boot from a non manufacturer sanctioned image.

As for stock android, I know there is a VPN API, so it should be possible.

How do we combat mass global misinformation? How about making the internet a little harder to use

Re: Teach people?

"removing time wasting rubbish"

One persons rubbish is another persons trigonometry/history

Personally, I think civil rights movements (eg BLM) are important enough to be taught about in schools. However some of them come under the heading of "Sociology" and is therefore sneered at by some.

ThinkPad T14s AMD Gen 1: Workhorse that does the business – and dares you to push that red button

Compare:

Compare:

KU-1255 (wired keyboard with TrackPoint)

and

EBK-209A (Bluetooth KB with a not-Trackpoint)

The former is brilliant. However, I couldn't find a wireless version that wasn't silly money (>£100)

The latter is a PITA, the nub works like a very small trackpad - but waaay to sensitive. Accidentally touch it while typing, it moves. Lift your finger to press the left click button, it moves away from where you were going to click. As a compact Bluetooth keyboard, it could be worse - it has PgUp/Dwn and Home/End keys. However if you are buying it so you don't need a trackpad or mouse, it will frustrate you.

Chromium cleans up its act – and daily DNS root server queries drop by 60 billion

Re: hang on

"millions of ordinary people were perfectly capable of using the internet"

Before the omnibox shenanigans, how many of us regularly witnessed people type the full domain into google, then click the link for domain they have just typed in?

Nespresso smart cards hacked to provide infinite coffee after someone wasn't too perky about security

Re: To be perfectly fair ...

But I *like* overly hopped IPAs.

Re: Coffee and Mifare Classic

That's where the unsecured ethernet ports are...

How embarrassing: Xiaomi and Motorola show up to high school prom both wearing remote-charging tech

You can already do that with a strong enough light bulb.

Three Body Problem Trilogy

Reminds me of the Three Body Problem Trilogy

In the later books, set in the future, they have all the flying cars and stuff, and they are powered by induction.

Since fusion had long been mastered and power was no longer scarce - it was more convenient to transmit the power via induction (even with the massive inefficiencies), than it was to carry the extra weight of the charging/generating infrastructure on the craft.

With the power transmission infrastructure in place, *everything* was powered that way.

Interesting times.

Cisco intros desktop switches, one with USB-C to power your laptop

Not quite

you're going to be required to have a docking station

What you link to does not say what you said.

From the link:

Other points to consider when planning tasks involving portable computers are:

[...]

(c) Provide docking stations or similar equipment (see paragraph 11 of this appendix) at workstations where portable computers will be in lengthy or repeated use.

"Points to consider" is not the same thing as "required to have".

The rest is just saying standard ergonomics apply - i.e. your boss can't make you hunch over a laptop on a low table for extended periods of time. A situation that *can* be remedied by having a proper desk setup with a docking station, yes, but its also solved by having a £10 laptop stand on the same desk.

Also, look at the date of the document. If docking stations were required, they would have been required since at least 2003. Not "going to be".

Perl-clutching hijackers appear to have seized control of 33-year-old programming language's .com domain

Re: I used to dislike Perl

Those things are not mutually exclusive.

Must 'completely free' mean 'hard to install'? Newbie gripe sparks some soul-searching among Debian community

Conversely, what percentage of users are running a Linux Desktop

I use Linux almost daily, but its all command line stuff on headless servers. My daily driver is a Win10 machine, and I have little reason to jump ship. Although I have installed Ubuntu to dual-boot if need be, it hasn't been booted in over a year.

An older relative asked me to take a look at his machine. It had Vista on it, and had the 'pox. He only used it to get on Facebook, and play web based games (one of which undoubtedly provided said pox). I thought this would be a good opportunity to do what we are always talking about in this place. I put Mint on it, making sure Chromium was on there too.

I heard back via another family member that he'd stopped using it, as the games he wanted to play wouldn't work without flash - and I didn't install it for obvious reasons.

I guess my point is that most users see their computer as "the internet box". The minutia we argue over is completely opaque to them. Extolling the virtues of things they don't care about means bugger all.

Old Joke

Emacs is great, but Unix/Linux has more apps.

(Accidentally posted this as a post down thread rather than a reply - since withdrawn)

BOFH: Are you a druid? Legally, you have to tell me if you're a druid

Re: Par for the course and right up some streets we all know of

Don't forget the obligatory political donation

Lenovo reveals smart specs that let you eyeball five virtual displays, with strings attached

Re: Strings attached

"if you're telling me that it's the glasses that are rendering them"

USB-C (thunderbolt 3) allow for external GPUs. I am currently reading this on a such a device about the size of a thumb drive. (bigger monitor used as part of a homebrew docking station)

A Raspberry Pi 4 can do a 4K desktop with hardware accelerated video. 5 X 1080p is not far off regular 4K, and no word has been given to its performance or hardware acceleration abilities. You don't exactly need an RTX 3080 to browse web pages/edit documents.

I currently do something similar with my Oculus Quest. 3 browser windows horizontally (~180 Degrees FoV), with the background being the "passthrough" of the tracking cameras.

I often wonder if they could detect QR codes or similar for the registration of Keyboards, and not overlay on those spots.

As for the glasses in the article, registration might not need to be particularly accurate. Projecting floaty monitors relative to your head only needs 3 DoF, and phones have been able to do that for a while. Keeping your peripheral vision in reality means no/less motion sickness. Exciting times ahead!

Edit: From the short concept video, it looks like there is a camera just above the nose. If the intent is that you are augmenting an existing display, it is trivial to include markers on the IRL screen. Then you place your virtual screens relative to that one. *shutupandtakemymoney.jpg*

Parler games: Social network for internet rejects sues Amazon Web Services for pulling plug on hosting

Re: Beginning of the end for cloud?

Depends if your 'business critical functions' involve breaking the law. If Parler gained popularity amongst Islamic terrorists, I doubt so many self proclaimed 'free speech' advocates would be decrying its demise.

Even if you own your own iron, its rare for companies to own their own datacentres. For each layer beneath what you own there is a business relationship that can be terminated at any time... by law enforcement if need be.

You wouldn't expect TPB to be openly hosted and accessible on AWS et al, so why Parler?

TPB still exists though, so Parler (or its de-facto successor) could end up following a similar path.

Stolen from Twitter

I would like to congratulate Parler on their new serverless infrastructure.

Brexit freezes 81,000 UK-registered .eu domains – and you've all got three months to get them back

Re: Most Remainers are too polite and won't say but "We told you so!"

The referendum was won by 1.9% (51.9% of total) - and that was before the house of cards of lies told by the leave camp had started to collapse.

Talking as if the UK chose leave as the obvious choice is simply not born out by the actual numbers. Along with the narrow victory for leave, we've had 2 subsequent elections (+ European parliament election) where the majority of votes were cast for parties that were either outright remain, or wanted a second referendum.

Yes, under our current voting system, that still means we leave, but talking as if it was inevitable, or that it was/is uncontroversial is outright fantasy.

I think the argument that people vote to change the status quo holds water. The red wall that had largely felt ignored for the last 15 years suddenly voting Tory bares this out. Unfortunately, they may not like the change that they get as a consequence (see the 're-organising' of our manufacturing sector).

Human nature is to co-operate, as we did in the common market. It is very much against human nature to surrender control over something which is seen as "ours" to "them", which is what rejoining would be seen as.

There's the rub. On the world stage there is "Us Europeans", "Those Americans", "Those Chinese", then "everyone else". The UK has voted to put itself in the latter category.

Remainers failed to convince enough people that the EU *is* the co-operation of (now) 27 countries. The parliament that represented us that voted on laws that spanned a continent. That includes sometimes getting outvoted. (as remainers were). I find it heartening that the EU parliament rarely voted along country lines, but would usually group themselves along left-right spectrum. Because they represented all of us.

"Perhaps in 25 years, if the EU is still around..."

The way things are going, that is more likely than the UK 'remaining' in it's current form.

Re: Not just money

"1) "remaining in the EU and making no changes and you'll be better off", which is obviously correct if your in the top 50% of the population by income, and obviously incorrect if your in the bottom 50% by income.

2) Remain said that your either with us and a good un, or against us and everythingist inhuman scum that we won't deign to communicate with.

1) Not so much "You'll be better off if you stay" as "you are already reaping the benefits, you'll be worse off without it". Lets face it, its the already-rich tory cronies that stand to make money from brexit. Trying to paint it as a victory for the working classes is outright delusional.

Look at the shortfall in funding to say.. Cornwall. 9 out of 10 of the poorest areas in Northern Europe are in the UK when we're supposedly one of the richest countries. That's not the fault of the EU. That's on us. The EU has just made a handy scapegoat. The positives of EU membership haven't stood out because how many of them people took for granted.

2) When every debate seemed to start and end with brexiters showing their ignorance around immigration, it is difficult for Remainers to frame that in any other way than xenophobia. It doesn't matter that EU migrants were more profitable for the taxman than the average British citizens, or that 9.1% of doctors and 6.0% of nurses are EU nationals. It always seemed to come back to immigration - even though we *always* had the ability to kick out immigrants that were a burden even under EU law .

Remainers seemed to spend most of the campaign fighting disinformation and outright lies.

*Thats* when the name calling starts, because frankly, once people become immune to evidence and facts , there is not a lot more talking to be done.

That's the sad thing. There *was* in informed debate to be had about the pros/cons of being in the EU. However that never happened. The closest we got to it was people asking honest questions, but the responses being shouted down as "unpatriotic".

Shrug. *I* didn't vote for it, and *I'll* be alright (*checks Bitcoin price*), but there are a lot of people who's livelihoods depend on being competitive within the EU. Tariff-free trade is a darn sight better than the dumpster fire that no-deal would have been, but the extra paperwork has a cost. Many SMEs selling to the UK have just decided not to bother.

Re: Not just money

"Leave side campaigned on ideals and principles."

Indeed. The ideals of "no more foreigners" and the principles of "are you English? or a TRAITOR?"

(the latter goes some way to explain why the Scots weren't taken in by it)

Hiding behind the flag when the leave camp's lies and half truths were being called out for what they are certainly shut down any rational discussion. Feelings not facts. Pointing out basic fucking facts and reality has become *gasp* UNPATRIOTIC. "Believe in the bin!"

Even now, almost every word our current politicians utter can be contradicted by a soundboard of clips from a few months previously - with barely an acknowledgment that the contradictory statements can't both be true.

Literally DoubleThink wrapped up in identity politics.

"The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command. " - George Orwell - 1984

Re: I want a .EU domain...

"Brexiteers are no more racists than Remainers"

The numerous Vox pops from Brexiters wearing their racism on their sleeves add weight to that not being true.

"naive clueless idiots who want someone else to do their thinking for them on the basis that being deferential to someone with a different accent makes them more sophisticated. It doesn't."

Ah so you're for Scottish independence then? Fair Enough.

Raven geniuses: Four-month-old corvids have similar cognitive abilities to great apes at same age, study finds

Re: tasks testing addition and understanding of relative numbers?

*our

Remember when we "train" animals, we are training them to understand *us*, not the other way around.

Dogs and Cats seem to be persevering with us though.

The GIMP turns 25 and promises to carry on being the FOSS not-Photoshop

Re: 25 years and still a pain to use

"more interested in adding new features than improving usability"

something something calibre

What we wanted: Netflix for books we already own

What we got: MP3 ID3 tagging-esque software from the mid-90s that takes a copy of every file it likes for its own use without the option to turn it off. I hope you don't have any large zip files...

UK reveals new 'National Cyber Force', announces Space Command and mysterious AI agency

" taking steps to assure that it doesn't break the international Good Friday Agreement should the EU continue to threaten Northern Ireland."

Are you getting some mirror universe news channels over there?

When even a power-cycle fandango cannot save your Windows desktop

Re: a perfectly understandable error

"I had already bought 'Ghost' for my team so we could deploy PC's faster"

Ah the heady days of imaging 1-2GB drives over a parallel port. (pre-usb boot)

The revolution will not be televised because my television has been radicalised

Re: BBC

Yep bias *is* a problem - like the question time eps with "more [Tory] plants than a garden Centre" - or how many times Farage got on there having never been an UK MP (even now)

Don't get me wrong, we do need greater transparency about these things, however you are viewing things through extremely blinkered/tinted glasses if you believe this only goes one way.

That said, someone holding an informed opinion might well affiliate themselves with (or against) a particular political party *because* of that opinion. That is fundamentally different from the bullshit identity politics you seem to be implying.

Finding out people in caring professions might lean away from the Tories should not be a revelation.

Python swallows Java to become second-most popular programming language... according to this index

Re: Sin tax

"That said, you'd generally expect somebody using Python in a serious project to have the correct indentation come as second nature to them"

Indeed. The equivalent bug would be having a closing brace in the wrong place. Easy enough mistake to make, but blaming the language makes them sound like they suck don't have a lot of experience.

If someone learning C complained about their curly bracket placement, one might nod along sympathetically and tell them to keep at it. Perhaps suggesting a linter/style guide to make such mistakes easier to spot. Why not the same for python? Or was that learning curve so long ago people have forgotten what its like to be new at something?

Personal preference is a thing, and that's fine. However there is a difference between "I don't like it, so I think it sucks" and "It objectively sucks, so I don't like it". Some of the people posting here are definitely the former, thinking they are the latter.

As always - horses for courses.

Re: Popular?

"It's just a bunch of small website projects.

Do any of the big web sites even use it?"

Yeah, 'small website projects' like google (inc youtube), reddit, instagram, netflix....

There are *many* sites using python that you will have heard of. A quick google gives many lists, but I present this one as it includes quotes from the companies themselves.

10 Famous websites built using Python

Re: Sin tax

"Can someone explain the appeal?"

**Bad Analogy Warning**

Think of it like Bash but with a big standard library and friendlier $SYNTAX

What python is really good at is glue code. That's why the data science folks doing the hard maths have taken it to heart. Its a case of being able to just get on with stuff while others complain about the minutia of juggling pointers. If you start to bump into python's limits, that's when its time to look for another tool. (eg R)

Look at Jupyter notebooks - you do your hard maths and have the results formatted in a nice graph in the browser window you launched the query from - cutting out many intermediate steps.

Perl could have been what python is. Yet we see it going the way of COBOL

If I may ask, what is it about python that irks you? (open question to everyone)

*ducks*

US-EU project to bring Mars samples back to Earth needs two more years, extra $4bn, watchdog warns

Re: "cost about $4bn more"

Are you familiar with the "Senate Launch System"?

123 Bork? Six-day DNS record-edit outage at domain name flinger 123 Reg enrages users

Oblig

Obligatory mythic beasts recommendation

Police chopper chasing a crim near an airport? Ideal time to use my laser pointer, says Texas idiot now behind bars

Re: Retroreflectors?

I fail to see the point. Shirley by shining the light they are automagically giving away their position?

Only if the laser is pointed directly at a sensor. Otherwise, you only see the beam if it has something to diffuse off. Having enough particulates/fog in the air to see the beam itself is highly weather dependant.

The beam divergence only needs to be low enough to still be detectable from its reflection.. After that, a a single drone with a sensor looking for the common laser pointer frequencies can be anywhere within line of sight. Hell, they might give their position away just by testing it on the ground nearby.

Retroreflectors?

Retroreflectors?

Not only would it be "returning fire", there would be a nice, easy-to-track laser designation point.

I suppose it depends on how far the beam diverges.

Apple wants privacy 'nutrition labels' on all new and updated apps in its software store from next month

Ahhh, but the ad free version is a one off purchase.

Ad revenue (or a subscription service) trickles in for as long as you use the app.

Which one of those is the developer more motivated to continue support for?

See also: Adobe creative suite, Office etc

Thought the FBI were the only ones able to unlock encrypted phones? Pretty much every US cop can get the job done

Re: @Adelio

"having you tear apart your own points"

Where? Which points do you believe have been torn apart? Be specific. What-abouting is not contradiction.

"you are really trying to apply reason"

Reason is something you have demonstrated yourself impervious to. Pesky "official government statistics", and "facts" used to back up the assertion that in the UK, GUNS ARE NOT NORMAL. You simply have no response to that. Well, other than "Nuh uh" which seems to be the sum total of your argument.

"your personal attacks"

You tried to say I thought killing people with knives was fine. That makes you a cretin. If you lack the mental capacity to figure out why (on account of being a cretin), that's not something I can help you with. You admitted you thought those intruders were fair game to shoot/kill "duck hunt style". That would make you - should you ever act as you imply you would - a murderer. As ruled by a court of law Saying "Nuh uh" to a jury - or claiming self defence - doesn't work when the evidence is against you - as it was for Tony Martin. Hell, if it should ever happen (Hawking forbid), this very comment thread could be used as evidence against you - as it shows premeditation.

having difficulty with the discussion.

Not at all. I have made my case, cited authoritative sources, and have had no substantive contradictory response.

Not including the attackers, The 2017 Westminster attack killed 5, the London Bridge attack the same year killed 8. The 2019 London Bridge stabbing killed 2.

Just to reiterate my original point: Saying that additional firearms would most likely have caused the above death tolls to be higher should not be a controversial statement. If they'd had fully automatic weapons (still obtainable by civilians in the states - with varying degrees of legality) the death toll could have been a *lot* higher. Also not a controversial statement. If you believe knives are equally effective weapons to firearms, the militaries of the world would beg to differ. Pointing out that bombs are *even worse* is simply deflection.

Attackers having access to those kind of weapons is related to their availability, and as I have shown, they are much more difficult to get hold of in the UK thanks to our gun laws. Again, not a controversial statement.

Best wishes.

*shrug* You seem to need the final word in these sort of exchanges, so I doubt you'll be able to leave this without replying.

So till next time...

Re: @Adelio

"Which seems moot as they use varying means worldwide regardless of the laws. We covered this.". .. Which is why they roll up with bombs.

Bombs are only part of the story, as stated in the other post.

You seem to think that because some terrorists favour bombs, our gun laws don't work/matter? Utter drivel

Yet violent crime is generally reduced by wider availability of guns.

Citation needed. After all, Afghanistan and Iraq are such peaceful places.

"Had they used bombs they could have killed/injured more"

You seem to be implying that because they *could* have used bombs, making it easier for them to have guns would have been... fine and dandy? Worth the risk? Countered in other thread (School shootings). Stop trying to use bombs as a justification that giving greater access to *your* favoured method of killing things is anything other than a terrible idea.

facts you dont refute

I have refuted them. We seem to be writing replies while the other is answering the previous post.

I will add that trying to limit the conversation to terror attacks is quite blinkered. That said, do you want me to link to terror attacks that used guns? Its not like they are difficult to find.

My issue isnt with data, its with the bollocks you seem to interpret from your beliefs that you seem to think somehow relates to the data.

and yet you tried to imply that the number of gun users in the UK is much greater than the figures suggest. Sounds like you have a problem with the data to me.

Left handedness is also not the norm, yet there 10 times as many left handed people as gun users in England and Wales. *shrug* If you consider 1% to be normal, perhaps you also consider the estimated 1% of folk who are Trans to be equally normal? I've certainly met more Trans folk than gun users..

So its ok to use a knife to kill someone but not a gun?

Your cretinry is getting tiresome.

So per state (each having their own gun laws) how do they compare?

Dunno, you haven't given any figures, or cited any sources, but while you are there, how do you suppose each individual state compares with the UK per capita?

Interesting you equate not believing someone should be terrorised by multiple burglaries (10 wasnt it?) as a bad thing? That I think his defending his property from repeated attacks as the police refused to do anything about it is somehow me fantasising about killing people.

Defending ones property does not require someone to be killed unless there is another life at stake. There wasn't. It is matter of public record that the court ruled that there wasn't. Yet he shot at them - as you imply you would have done. That act was ruled to be murder. By a court of law.

When I asked you if you thought they were fair game "duck hunt style", you said 'Yup'. That's not my projection, that's your admission.

The only reason the charge was reduced to manslaughter was on the grounds of diminished responsibility. What would your defence have been? Feel free to say you misspoke and that you didn't mean to imply that you would kill (murder) the lad... But I don't think you will.

Re: @Adelio

Hence legal as I said

and rare.. As *I* said..

"So the many who would not use it for ill are banned from them because of a few people who would"

Yes. Like explosives - or driving. Its not just about intent, its about competence. Take lockdown/Covid restrictions as another example.. The idiots messing things up for the many is why we can't have nice things.

"Except of those who would already do"

Correction: *Some* of those who would already do. This is the point I keep making (and you keep ignoring), illegal guns are just not as easily available as you keep making out. That's a good thing.

So coming back to the tight regulation leaving the undesirables misusing guns but getting in the way of legal ownership and use.

*Some* undesirables misusing guns. 0.01% of the population (as referenced earlier)

I can't tell if you genuinely have that level of fear and paranoia, or if you're just parroting stuff you heard on the internet. Critical thinking skills do not seem to be your strong suit.

Your conclusions being poor enough to pull apart

Really? Where? You keep overstating how easy it is to illegally get a hold of guns (refuted through statistics), whilst complaining about "overregulation"..

any poor excuse for your belief.

Like you trying to make out that every criminal who wants a gun, has one? You're funny.

"claimed terrorist attacks would be 'different' (I think you mean worse) if guns were more available"

Then gave 3 concrete examples of attacks that did not have bombs, and would have been worse if guns were as easy to get hold have as you say.

Except you concede that bombs are more popular

Bombs are used 'as well as', not 'instead of'. Household chemicals can be got hold of. Knowledge on what to do with them is less easy to come by without ending up on a watch list. Getting hold of guns depends on location. Explosives are good for one and done, but there is a reason soldiers carry assault rifles. I could link to any number of attacks where both were used, or just guns (how many active shooters so far this year in the US?), but you don't care.

Then forgetting how wrong you were

Because you don't think 'active shooters' are a thing? It happens *so often* in the US that their schools do *drills* for it! That is messed up!

Duh, we already discussed this

Really? Where? You spouted a load of crap ignoring facts and reality, but that's just you continuing to be wrong.

Then you try to argue that guns are not normal.

By using the govs own figures, yes. 1%

Except you conflate this somehow with crime which is stupid.

Where? I added the offence figure to the number of gun users because *you* keep going on about all these criminals with guns. I used *actual figures* to show that its almost negligible. 0.01% of the population. 3% of homicides. Low figures thanks to our gun laws (and enforcement).

Somehow trying to compare legal gun stocks in the US to a single confiscation by police of illegal guns in the UK.

Yep. Comparing the general levels of availability between the UK and the US. Do you think those nice legal guns are somehow not available to criminals in the US? That's where you contradict yourself. You seem to think saying the word "legal" stops them being used in crimes. Then you admit that criminals don't care, but then those legal guns somehow don't count(?) or are not comparable to guns that criminals use(?) .

The single confiscation in the low double digits being heralded as the *largest ever* because of their *lack of availability* in the UK. In the US guns are generally available (state laws permitting), in the UK they are not. Unless those UK sporting gun shops you mentioned are breaking the law by supplying guns to people without firearm certificates? Or the nice 'legal' owners of firearms are, in fact, *gasp* supplying criminals!? That might call for even tougher laws! (Nah, I recon we've got the balance about right)

I quote this stupidity

I attempt to be charitable to your position by acknowledging that we *both* will have had different life experiences as to what we think is normal. The difference is that *I* defer to actual facts and data. You, it would appear, don't care about such pesky things...

while somehow thinking terrorists are different?

Whilst there is an overlap, jostling with other gangs day-today for control of an area is *very* different to being strongly motivated to plan and prepare and attack one specific target over weeks/months/years. A gang member could spend years getting into many altercations with varying levels of violence. A terrorist martyring themselves only gets to attack once.

At no point do I need to argue with your figures,

The figures show that guns in the UK are not the norm. That undermines quite a lot of what you've said. You keep trying to refute it without addressing the underlying fundamental truth. If you had figures about how many at the gun club are cert holders vs not you could give alternative numbers. But the best you have is "plenty". Here, let me help you. From the gov report I posted earlier:

In the year ending 31 March 2019, 2,016 people were covered by individual or group visitors’ permits for firearms, representing a 6% increase of 120 compared with the previous year. In the same period, there were 7,177 people covered by individual or group visitors’ permits for shotguns representing a 0.7% decrease of 54 compared with the previous year

Sooo that would be an extra 0.02% of the population. I'm surprised myself how low that figure is. If you have a source for other figures fell free to come back with them. Otherwise you are just chatting shit without evidence.

Its the old climate denier schtick "There is no credible evidence" *presents evidence* "That isn't credible" ad nauseum.

Re: @Adelio

"Since the people who should protect him didn't he did it himself. "

Uhuh, and if he'd just chased them off with a warning shot, or if they were coming at him, I'd agree with you. But that's not what happened. He shot to kill.

As a counter example - here is an example of *actual* self defence:

Link

Re: @Adelio

"Yet even with this capacity... various other options seem more interesting to terrorists"

My point being that in the UK, they have not *had* that capacity... because our gun laws mostly work.

In Afghanistan, they have that capacity *and use it* as a follow up to the bombs. Shootings are so common over there as to not be news worthy. Bombs make the headlines because of their size..

you dont need to be up close to indiscriminately kill/injure

and yet that is what our terrorists have had to resort to - because our gun laws mostly work.

But you think they would have got a gun to do this because you dont like gun? Eh? Kids get guns, but terrorists cant?

Me liking or not liking guns has nothing to do with it. Any competent terrorist will have investigated the possibility of getting guns because it is an easier way to kill/maim people (than knives), you can drop multiple targets in rapid succession, well out of arms reach. A man with a big knife, I can potentially fight/outrun. I can't outrun a bullet.

The fact that the Tower bridge attackers *didn't* use guns, when these attacks will have been in preparation for a good long while implies they *couldn't* or were deterred enough by our gun laws to not even try. If they had guns, they could have killed and injured many more.

"Murder of Lee Rigby....The Cumbria shootings

How is that relevant to regular people calling the police *on sight* of an air-soft gun? Trying to go open-carry in broad daylight will get you "SWAT"-ed in most built up areas... eventually. Crappy police response times is a separate issue. (Tory Austerity Cuts)

If only you could apply that to yourself

I did. That's why I linked to official government figures to back my statements up - as opposed to your "annecdata". You try to state I'm wrong, but you can't refute the data. You don't even offer a *different interpretation* of the data..

"vast stock of legal guns... vs a tightly regulated country"

Yes. That's the point. Much wider availability here would be a problem. Having them widely available without the checks the UK currently has in place, would make them easy targets of illegal use. As opposed to the current hoops criminals are forced to jump through where converted replicas are being used (to varying degrees of danger for the user).The contradiction I mention is where you say the "vast stocks" are for "legal use" (where self defence counts as legal) yet acknowledge that criminals don't care about such legalities.

you just have your interpretation

You haven't given an interpretation that references actual data

Obviously seeing a gun isnt a problem in legal

Indeed, because In the UK, so few circumstances are legal..

why do you assume thats because of the over tight regulations?

Because if guns where easy to get hold of, they wouldn't have to resort to knives.

A lot of people in the US have seen legal guns and no gun crime.

And many see lots of crime. That's why we refer to the statistics. The reality of the situation doesn't tell the same story you are trying to: 4 times the murder rate per capita? Within that, 73% involving a firearm in the US vs 3% for the UK? (source). Firearms in the home more likely to harm a resident than an intruder? Data and facts don't seem to matter to you.

"best you have is to claim I am paranoid and fantasise killing someone?"

In another post you LITERALLY ADMITTED you thought the burglars were fair game. The courts ruled that makes it murder. Do *you* have an abusive past to hide behind, or are you just a killer?

Re: @Adelio

" personal experience of people legally possessing firearms"

Yes. As tools for work. Less than 5 times in my whole life. Whilst living in one of the worst places for gun crime in the country. I'm not trying to say guns don't exist. I'm saying (again) that the regulations in the UK successfully limit access to many of the people that would use them for ill. I've even given you examples.

"That excludes air gun ... requires no licence"

Why do you suppose that is? Would you like to include paintball markers as well? Nerfs? /s

Its amazing how the sporting gun shops in the UK stay open with so little business.

1% of people is still >500k people. Add to that the proportion of those that are likely to be rich (managed estates) and/or paying for the stuff through their business (e.g. Farm), and that's plenty to sustain many businesses. However, across the country, that is a very small proportion of people. Drilling down further into the figures reveals only "159,745 firearm certificates [are] on issue" - distinct from shotgun licences. So that's a minority within a minority using anything other than shotguns. Unless you are claiming the government's own figures are wrong?

"you can go to a range and use live ammunition guns without a license "

Even if you *triple* the numbers of legal gun users (doubtful), you are still only at 3%. Add to that the unlicensed folks will be under supervision in a controlled environment and you prove my point..

Out there *gestures outside* guns are not normal in the UK. They are not a part of our culture outside of violent gangs and the rich elite/farmers out in the countryside. That is a tiny proportion of the country. We all live in our own bubbles of life experience, but I've given data and figures that back up my claims. You have yet to present any figures/data that contradict them.

Re: @Adelio

Addendum:

591,302 people held a firearm and/or a shotgun certificate in England and Wales year ending 31st March 2019. Source (pdf)

That's ( 591302 / (Eng 56.29m + Wal 3.15m)) * 100 = ~1% of the civilian population are legal gun users.

The number of firearms offences over that period is 6,759. Source (web)

If we assume each of those offences was done by a separate person (unlikely)

That's ( (591302 + 6759) / 59.44m) * 100 = *still* ~1% of the population. (0.01% criminal)

Guns (in England and Wales) are not normal. QED.

Re: @Adelio

"still makes more sense to them to blow things up"

Indeed, bombs are more easily hidden, and don't always require someone to be present to pull the trigger.

Counter points: The two Tower bridge attacks. They didn't have explosives. They didn't have guns. The Glasgow airport attack had them resorting to petrol bombs and propane canisters that they lacked the knowledge to use effectively.

From that we can infer that *at least* 3 terrorist groups/cells didn't have the "usual transport routes" or the ability to make their own explosives because they would have *used* them. Which implies that gun control in the UK has been at least somewhat effective in *multiple* cases - and those are just the cases of the top of my head. It would seem that would-be terrorists and gang members don't move in the same circles (with the possible exception of Northern Ireland)

"That would need to be demonstrated"

The fact that the "largest ever" machine gun haul was merely in the low double digits *demonstrates* how rare these items are.

If you are a farmer, or live in the arse end of nowhere, I get that a rifle or a shotgun is a tool of the trade, but in the urban areas where most people live, even *seeing* a gun (or something that looks like one) with someone not in a uniform will result in police getting called pretty quick.

"I went to legal ranges so firearms are normal"

Uhuh, and Gwyneth Paltrow and friends think its normal to spend $300 a day on food. That bloke earning 80k who thought he was in the lower 50% or earners etc. What you do in your sparsely populated bubble does not reflect on wider UK society. See also: Fox hunting as a 'sport'. (Distinct from *actual* hunting to eat/trade.).

"being bought for legal activity."..."Criminals don't care about the law either"

So which is it? You are contradicting yourself. I'm sure criminals promise not to use their legally bought weapons for criminal things honest 'guv. - or to steal those nice and legal weapons should the opportunity arise /s

Meh, the statistics speak for themselves. - as others have already stated.

I live in Birmingham. One of the "worst" places in the UK for gun crime, yet I have never even *seen* a gun IRL that wasn't in the arms of a policeman or a farmer - even then I can count those times on one hand. No, I don't live in a posh area. No, my experience is not unusual. I don't deny gun crime is a problem - but living in fear of an armed home invasion - as you seem to - is outright paranoia. or worse - a fantasy of 'justifiably' killing someone.

Re: @Adelio

That's the thing, *you* seem to think that he shouldn't have been locked up because the burglars were fair game, duck hunt style. The "self defence" defence was *rejected* by the appeal court.

Link to report on appeal

"It was claimed that he had a long standing paranoid personality disorder and suffered depressive illness in the months leading to the shooting."

The *court* ruled that that kind of paranoia (that you seem to share) came from his mental illness. Do you agree? Or do you think he was just working an angle to get away with murder?

"his mental state could have made him react more violently than the average person"

Something you wish to talk about codejunky? Doesn't have to be to us, but talk to *someone* before you hurt someone.

Re: @Adelio

The one that was jailed for murder, yes.

Charge later reduced to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility (i.e. he was mentally ill)

Remember when the keyboard was the computer? You can now relive those heady days with the Raspberry Pi 400

Re: NO OpenGL ES 3.2 still ?

Its already 3.1 conformant, and it looks like Vulcan 1.0 support is the next priority.

3.2 seems to be mostly the Android Extension Pack. Does that mean 3.2 support can be done in shaders?

Voyager 2 is back online after eight months of radio silence

Re: Blink and you miss it

I remember reading a Harry Potter Fanfic where one of the horcruxes was the pioneer plaque (*checks* on pioneer 11)