* Posts by Paul Shirley

2284 publicly visible posts • joined 19 Jun 2009

Prominent Brit law firm instructed to block Brexit Article 50 trigger

Paul Shirley

Re: If it is a group of business'...

I'll say it again: this will confirm that brexit is performed in a legal manner and reduce (not prevent) the inevitable legal challenges later. Where real reporters dealt with this, it was made clear they don't expect to stop brexit, just make sure it's done properly.

This is about removing uncertainty, which damages business, the country and it's people - native and migrant. The same reason I want the clueless fuckwits to stop delaying and finish this almighty fuckup quickly, before the enboldened xenophobes turn even nastier.

I remember what this country was like in the 70's and I don't want those attitudes back.

Paul Shirley

Re: Sovereign rules apply n'est pas?

It's as if no one told them sovereignty is something they only borrow for 1 day every 5 years, then it's snatched back in exchange for a few promises our rulers will selectively fulfil.

The de minimis bit of control those in power needed to share to stay there. Us plebs are supposed to be satisfied with the illusion, after all it's more than most of us had for the last couple of thousand years.

Paul Shirley

Re: "No, No, No. Let me resign..."

@Dan 55: "Cameron should have had a contingency plan given that he called the referendum"

...but he did and unlike Farage he implemented it immediately. That it's not the plan leavers wanted is not something I'm going to lose sleep over.

Paul Shirley

Re: What a horrible waste of time and money

"It appears that the effort is not really aiming to find the proper way to do it, but an effort to override the vote of the 52% of those who turned out for the referendum."

Alternately this is the only way to stop both sides bitching endlessly that the notification wasn't legal when no one gets exactly what they want. Business wants certainty, even the certainty that the result isn't what they hoped for.

Paul Shirley

Re: What a horrible waste of time and money

@Barely registers:"we're the ones currently in the bait box"

The English are in a hard spot as well, with an unknown number of leave voters unwilling to compromise on migration, likely to explode if they don't get what they think they were offered.

From the last couple of weeks listening to acquaintances and eavesdropping on strangers in unguarded moments, there are more than enough to worry about. The most extreme sample was not caring if everything else was a lie, as long as the migrants went home, followed by blind repetition of the 'take back control' mantra.

One of the eastern european seasonal farm workers put it nicely, he can go home but he felt sorry for the English with no where else to go.

Paul Shirley

Re: What a horrible waste of time and money

The problem is Article 50 explicitly requires notification to be in line with the leaving states existing law and process. That strongly suggests it does not override the existing 1972 legislation.

For the record: I would much prefer legal action was aimed at forcing immediate issuance of article 50 notification. The prospect of UK politicians playing chicken with the EU for as long as they can get away with is good for no one.

Fear and Brexit in Tech City: Digital 'elite' are having a nervous breakdown

Paul Shirley

Re: The current plan does not matter

We elect MPs because we hope they will form a Government that does know better than us

We use representative democracy because:

1: naked democracy is dangerous: prone to persecuting minorities, making decisions that can't be easily undone, too easily hijacked by emotion rather than facts

2: it's inefficient

We've stopped at a system that should be more efficient (but looking at the chancers infesting it might not be). More importantly, done right it provides the essential pauses before making damaging bad choices. Time to think, time to find facts, time to talk people down.

Except our democracy has been captured by the party system, where often the only break on madness is convoluted legislative process injecting some delay. Where politicians have decided to be leaders instead of representatives. Where the voters can be manipulated and lied to at will.

When they called for naked democratic voting they abandoned their purpose of moderating the madness. The only possible argument for letting these c**ts interfere is that they chose to interfere so monstrously in the voting. That's a justification for sacking the lot of them, possibly disbarring them from any public service, not an excuse to give them more power.

Paul Shirley

Re: Let cooler heads prevail...

Farage might be one of the horses...

Far from certain 'sanity' is here. We've pulled one leg back into the frying pan with the self serving Boris temporarily sidelined but there's no way to please all the brexit voters. There's too large a gap between those that just wanted a 'better deal' and those that want completely out at any cost.

Osborne on Leave limbo: Travel and trade stay unchanged

Paul Shirley

"Is there an agreed method by which we get access to the single market without all the conditions attached?"

43years trying to opt out of obligations by the UK is pretty good proof there's no way to pick and choose what you want apart from the big things like the Euro (and that window is gone).

Article 50 is a remarkably simple document with one obvious omission: it guarantees at least 2 years negotiation by the EU but negotiation in good faith is only implied, not specified.

When Boris is finally compelled by an angry electorate to deliver on brexit, the moment he stops negotiating in good faith there's nothing to compel the EU to show it either. And given the history of resisting the separation of benefits from obligations when dealing in or with the EU, there's not an honest court on the planet that would think refusing that was bad faith anyway.

Boris, Gove, whoever takes the poisoned chalice has a lot of explaining to do. And the "TakeBackControl" voters he'll be explaining it to aren't ones I'd want to piss off, as various migrants are sadly discovering today.

Paul Shirley

Re: Growing Sense of bereavement..

the last thing we'd want him to do is try and intervene in a plunging market.

I thought we were just going to watch the bank of england piss away £250bil failing to prop up the economy this time?

Paul Shirley

Re: Growing Sense of bereavement..

"The vote was Leave, now we have to make it work."

No. You have to make it happen. Until then leavers are 'having their cake and eating it', you wanted to leave, start pressing the clowns in westminster to make it happen NOW.

The leave voters I talked to after the result voted to leave, not to get a better deal. The leave campaign targeted them, time to grow some balls and accept the consequences.

Parliament takes axe to 2nd EU referendum petition

Paul Shirley

What's pathetic is the sight of brexiteer reporter failing to report:

1: the petition was up BEFORE the referendum

2: it was put up by a leaver frightened the vote was going the wrong way!

The only meaningful poll is one to force immediate issuing of article 50 notification before the scoundrels can manipulate the situation into something worse.

UK digi strategy on ice post Brexit results - sources

Paul Shirley

Re: In a few years agricultural land could be a goldmine

In a few years time there may be no one prepared to pick the crops.

Brexit government pledge sought to keep EU-backed UK science alive

Paul Shirley

Re: need a brexit petition

"Can we keep the pressure on though by signing this:-

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/131215"

I doubt it. What we need is a gov petition to force immediate notification under article 50. Feet to the fire time, find out what plan the Eton crew had for self benefit. Though it looks very like the plan actually went wrong and they weren't all expecting to have to deal with brexit.

The alternative is Johnson,Gove and co spend the next 3 years pretending the EU is blocking them (and the voters will fall for it again) then, if they aren't offered improbable and unbelievable terms to stay (not happening) they'll have timed it to steal the 2020 election. Before the public feel any real pain from brexit :(

Cynical? I find you can never be too cynical when politicians are involved.

Tech firms reel from Leave's Brexit win

Paul Shirley

Re: Children

"Or piss off and take your taxes to somewhere else"

Tempting for those of us able to retain EU citizenship. Not really interested in funding Boris' next bleach job.

Paul Shirley

Re: Didn't

@Steve 114 you haven't heard it because they haven't told the uk it's leaving. Yet. But we weren't invited to this week's meeting...

Paul Shirley

Re: London Falling

"What we need is a free trade agreement, no tariffs with any EEA member, and freedom of movement for work"

Unlikely to be an option. Talking to drunken brexiters (ordinary working people not Eton trained profiteers) they predominantly wanted borders closed and specifically wanted to stop EU workers coming here. So focused on it that being told lies "didn't matter" and the suggestion they might also have been lied to about that, just brought blank expressions.

I'm almost looking forward to how Boris and his merry crew of pirates talk their way out of this one when the working brexit voters notice the borders not slamming shut and no one being sent home.

Paul Shirley

Re: Really?

Elites pushing their personal agenda is how we got into this mess and they're still there nicely set up to enrich themselves at our expense. I rarely agree with politician but Cameron was right about"Boris does what's good for Boris"

'Leave EU means...' WHAT?! Britons ask Google after results declared

Paul Shirley

Re: "I'm sure I heard passing references to Polish delicatessens"

I try not to pass a Polish delicatessen without going in...

Paul Shirley

Re: "thats democracy after all"

Democracy assumes an informed electorate. Informed before voting, so yes, plenty of absolute fuckwits who realised what they are too late.

We ended up with a grossly misinformed electorate unwilling or unable to apply any level of critical thinking to the bullshit being peddled. Hardly surprising with people making a profession of bullshitting them.

PM resigns as Britain votes to leave EU

Paul Shirley
Coat

Re: Demographics

It's what you get when almost everyone involved tells lies but one side had a 30yr head start doing it.

Paul Shirley

Re: "used to having everything done for them"

The only thing I've got used to is very occasionally having the worst excesses my gov would like to commit blocked. Getting to vote every 5 years for the least offensive bag of policies on offer followed by 3 years of doing whatever they like gives far too much opportunity for mischief.

Three non-obvious reasons to Vote Leave on the 23rd

Paul Shirley

Re: EU Problems Are Closer To Home

UK voters also need to get smart enough to stop electing governments that equate 'fixing/reforming the EU' with grabbing power back for parliament. I don't remember a single gov since we joined with any genuine interest in fixing problems. The idea of making the EU more democratic makes for great rabble rousing sound bites but get's blocked at every chance, making it accountable to the voters is a distant second to retaining closed door influence by ministers and civil servants.

Want to complain about our relationship with the EU? Elect better UK politicians and kick out the self serving bottom feeders we keep electing.

Why you should Vote Remain: Bananas, bathwater and babies

Paul Shirley
WTF?

"This is what "pushing for reform" means in practice"

Wow. A gap in my knowledge filled: reform = opting out of things you don't like.

Now I also know why so little self serving UK 'reform' has been successful ;)

Rejoice, fatties: Giving chocolate electric shocks makes it healthier

Paul Shirley

It's only cocoa butter in good chocolate. Which leaves me wondering why makers of nasty mockulate concoctions like a Mars bar would ever want to swap cheap vegetable fats for expensive cocoa solids. After all they've already swapped expensive cocoa butter for cheap crap.

Apple pollutes data about you to protect your privacy. But it might not be enough

Paul Shirley
Holmes

If a tree falls but no one sees it...

If a targeted advert isn't seen in a forest of adblocking, does it have any impact? And how long will the advertiser continue to pay for that useless information?

[no comment on actually protecting privacy implied, though I agree it's a right PIA everywhere and with everyone]

Brexit: More cash for mobile operators or consumers? Pick one

Paul Shirley

Re: UK legislation

all-knowing EU politicians some we vote for directly, some unelected but sent by the crooks we elect to Westminster to do their undemocratic bidding!

More interesting is the constant flip-flop between wicked not-British polticians & faceless eurocrats, depending on the needs of the story being concocted. Personally I don't see much difference between our MP's and civil service in Westminster doing whatever they fscking well want as soon as their despicable election promises are done with and the EU equivalents. At least our wannabe tyrants have to reach some sort of consensus when they go to the EU, instead of taking turns to ruin the country in opposing ways.

A pox on them all, they're working for themselves, not us.

Microsoft releases open source bug-bomb in the rambling house of C

Paul Shirley

Re: Bounds checking for C and C++

I don't believe Fortran defines pointers at the low level C does so there's more freedom to modify Fortran. Ç is little more than high level assembler and deliberately so, that's why C++ exists.

Paul Shirley

Re: C is not an applications programming language

I'll let you in on a secret: system components, OSes and whatever you think'language environments' means also need bounds checks. They deal with unpredictable client requests like any app even if written by super coders magically able to make their own code 100% deterministic and somehow not needing checks. Even god like coders make mistakes anyway.

Thinking like that keeps security researchers employed.

Patent trolls, innovation and Brexit: What the FT won't tell you

Paul Shirley

If the thing I read yesterday is true, Norway pays 90% per person of what the UK does, making 'little' = 10%. Except we get handed back nearly half that money and I rather doubt Norway get EU subsidies or rebates.

So the Norway deal appears to give them EU regulations, they're Schengen anyway so free movement is neutral, they probably pay more than we do & have no influence from that payment. Sounds like a pretty poor deal, a high price to pay for letting local incompetent or dishonest politicians & civil servants make a few decisions some other crooked and incompetent ones makes now.

Farrage&co of course hope brexit has them supping closer to the trough and getting a good deal for the country is the last thing on their minds.

Paul Shirley

Re: Got fishing wrong

If patent trolling is a problem then deal with it directly, rather than by keeping the currently horrendously complicated system as is.

And that's the heart of Brexit: all problems are solved by running away and sticking your head in the sand. Quite how that avoids a global issue like patent abuse is a mystery but it's just got to be easier than fixing the real problem. Hasn't it?

as long as we reduce the powers of the national governments

I see this as the biggest problem with Europe, govs that talk big about reform but sit on their hands if there's the slightest chance it might steal any of their power.

Wales gives anti-vaping Blockleiters a Big Red Panic Button

Paul Shirley

Interesting that one prominent bit of ongoing vaping research is comparing the lethality on cell cultures of the different flavours, in vaped mixes. A startling wide range of lethality but ALL of them kill cells. Does have the useful side effect of some flavours killing lung infections, another poison with medical uses!

So far I've been lucky, the 1 vaper I know seems to use an inoffensive flavour, sadly that's no guarantee it's a safer one though.

Vaping: almost certainly safer for smokers (but the research hasn't been done yet) but safer!=safe and the evidence is mounting it's at least an irritant, not something to do if you're not a quitting smoker.

Microsoft splashes Virtual Reality-slinging 'Scorpio' Xbox

Paul Shirley

The same SoC currently powering xb1 with twice the rendering power. Achievable by doubling the gpu core count, doubling clocks or some combination would be better because the current Jaguar cpu is utter shite and needs a clock boost.

However: yes, it will be VR capable, at some low screen resolution. 4k gaming is just fiction. The current xb1 struggles with 1080p @60Hz with few games achieving it. AMDs shiny RX 480 claims 5tflops but only aims for 1440p gaming. The scorpio numbers don't make sense unless you like juddering 30fps play.

Paul Shirley

Re: Rift

Microsoft announced their bid to make win10 the natural home of VR about 2 weeks back (too early, to little sleep to remember what they called it) and they definitely plan on multiple device support. It wouldn't be a surprise if that extends to xbox. Does rely on capturing developer support for their VR framework though and Facebook might have something to say about that after slapping aggressive drm on Occulus.

Google doesn’t care who makes Android phones. Or who it pisses off

Paul Shirley

Re: Don't blame the OEMs

Don't forget to blame the OEM's, carriers and regulators. Google has never had enough power to force any of them to provide product support. They all learned from Apple that conceding any control at all was bad and unlike Apple, Googles Nexus line didn't grab enough market share to frighten any of them.

Endless API churn in the kernel it's built on doesn't help either, once the manufacturer stops updating their binary driver blobs you're usually locked into that release of Android. That's something Goggle should have controlled and had the power to do.

There's plenty of blame to go around.

Brexit threatens Cornish pasty's racial purity

Paul Shirley

Re: Now I'm hungry

No no no no

No need to drive home, pasties are perfect street food. No need to drive home.

Paul Shirley

Re: Just when I think I've firmly decided on Remain

The designation includes quality factors, so in fact we're supposed to end up with only 1 protected. Even with the seemingly low threshold to qualify as a Cornish Pasty there doesn't seem to be a rush of meat slurry packagers moving to Cornwall to take advantage (or Bulgarians setting up factories) and case 2 isn't an issue.

Paul Shirley

Re: Sarcasm

Yes, but the thought that some factory in Birmingham could start churning out faux Cornish Pasty's should worry you. Because I don't remember our government lifting a finger to protect any foods before joining the EU.

Oooooklahoma! Where the cops can stop and empty your bank cards – on just a hunch

Paul Shirley
Mushroom

It's the price of freedom!!

Yes, merkins talk good freedom but very few seem to work out what it means and how to do it.

Startup Knupath offers world a new CPU architecture

Paul Shirley
Coat

all we need to know

Is it faster than a D-wave?

England just not windy enough for wind farms, admits renewables boss

Paul Shirley

Re: "Solar only works in really sunny countries"

...while not "pointing" at any actual expert reports (or that the sources for that fairy tale aren't from experts in PV either). Panels produced in 2004 were estimated to have 1.7-2.7 year energy payback in S Europe - ~5 yr in the UK. Since then efficiency has improved a lot and manufacturing efficiency has improved.

The downside is shifting production to China has pushed up CO2 production, through dirty coal generation and lax manufacturing standards. Even there the numbers don't support the 'story' and they're getting better as China imposes regulation on production. I'm aware that 'regulation' is a red mist word to Andrew ;)

It's another urban myth that won't die because some desperately need to justify their position.

Paul Shirley

Re: "Solar only works in really sunny countries"

If you pay attention while driving through England (much easier on public transport) you'll quickly notice just how few pv and wind installations there are. Wind is strongly held back by nimbyism so even though i don't believe we're out of good sites, we're out of good sites with much chance of approval.

In one of the last Lewis rants he dismissed pv for only supplying 5% of demand. At the time I started looking for pv installs in my part of the uk and it was noticeably less than 5% of available sites.

PV works so well in Germany simply because they installed more. More efficiency would be nice but it's not needed in our conditions, more panels and infrastructure to support them are what's missing. Chinese mass use is doing more for pv by reducing prices than our government or industry ever did.

Windows 10 market share jumps two per cent

Paul Shirley
Mushroom

still 700mil short

Hence the switch to mugging your pc instead of conning it into Win10 downgrades. Won't be surprised if new ransomware strikes before the 1bil deadline and the unlock solution is Win10...

'UnaPhone' promises Android privacy by binning Google Play

Paul Shirley

App updates is a common vector for malware, advertising or just breaking the apps. Forced app updates is unacceptable and another money sink if they try to verify each one.

Someone didn't really think this through.

'Windows 10 nagware: You can't click X. Make a date OR ELSE'

Paul Shirley

Re: but the upgrade crapped out

What's more disturbing is the updates keep crapping out as well. Not failing but leaving parts of the system broken. My network PVR 8.1 -> 10 upgrade went pretty well, drivers were replaced with bad ones as expected, the network took a while to come back but mostly it just worked after un-updating then hiding the drivers.

Last weekend's surprise (and forced while I was out) update installed the same blocked drivers, destroyed the firewall (?because I'd blocked most MS spyware and they were 'fixing' it) and generally raped my settings. Took more than half a day getting the damn machine back on the network and nearly working. And I know it will happen again if I don't completely cut it off from Microsoft servers :(

Paul Shirley

...you missed the report of 4 separate processes guarding each other. Not much chance you'll taskkill them all before they relaunch each other :(

Smartwatches: I hate to say ‘I told you so’. But I told you so.

Paul Shirley

Found this 2011 survey showing <50% wearing watches and phones already taking over for time telling. https://today.yougov.com/news/2011/05/05/brother-do-you-have-time/

I stopped wearing one as a teenager, stopped carrying one when cheap pocketable alarm clocks became available, then switched to phones-as-clocks when they reached disposable prices. Didn't use my 1st mobile as a phone for over a year but it made a great (and tiny) portable clock :)

Even as timepieces watches are irrelevant for most of the population now.

Windows 7, Server 2008 'Convenience' update is anything but – it breaks VMware networking

Paul Shirley

Re: I am not surprised at anything MS do anymore

To be fair to MS, updates have broken hyperv networking on my Win10 box far too often. They spread the incompetence around...

Kraftwerk versus a cheesy copycat: How did the copycat win?

Paul Shirley

"the court argued that the producer could have reproduced the distinctive drum sample himself"

which will also get you sued in much of the world. So hardly a workround.

Not two, not four, but 10 cores in Intel's new PC powerhouse

Paul Shirley

Gamers will get zero benefit

That's changing. DX12 and Vulkan unlock big rendering gains from multithreading. Xb1 and PS4 are driving game programmers to try maxing out 8 cores and that spills over easily into pc work. 10 cores won't be excessive in the not so distant future even for gaming.