* Posts by Danny 2

2212 publicly visible posts • joined 6 Jul 2009

The Battle of Britain couldn't have been won without UK's homegrown tech innovations

Danny 2

Lets hear it for the girls

The schoolgirl who helped design the Spitfire

The Woman Whose Invention Helped Win a War — and Still Baffles Weathermen

My dad still hates the Germans, I had to ask a German girlfriend to claim she was Swiss. But it means I've been seeped in war documentaries. The tech invention I think had the greatest effect on the outcome was the proximity fuse.

Family wrongly accused of uploading pedo material to Facebook – after US-EU date confusion in IP address log

Danny 2

Half Eight

(Apologies if you've read this anecdote here before)

My yank boss agreed to take us from the Netherlands to Scotland for the MS Exchange course. He asked me to pick him up at half eight, but was furious when I picked him up at half eight because he'd been waiting for an hour.

In Dutch half eight means 7:30am/pm. He assumed that was all of Europe. In the UK half eight is always 8:30.

He was also angry when I drove him to the Scottish Claymores shop. He assumed it was a shop that sold swords, it was a shop that sold merchandise for the Edinburgh "American Football" team. Then he got angrier when I couldn't drive him to a place that sold swords. We're kind of banned from buying swords since 1745.

In retrospect I don't think he liked me. He was a huge, rotund fellow who boasted his size meant he could maintain a constant internal temperature, but he couldn't maintain his temper.

Danny 2

Re: Bring back VMS Standard Date/Time...

@Doctor Syntax

"Three letters: I S O"

Nous sommes l'ISO, l'Organisation internationale de normalisation. Okay, the French have rolled with that grosse insult, but they really do call N.A.T.O. O.T.A.N.

Take your pick: 'Hack-proof' blockchain-powered padlock defeated by Bluetooth replay attack or 1kg lump hammer

Danny 2

Re: Confessions of a bolt cutter

That makes sense Pat, although I have to point out it was XR Scotland who claim to dislike and be different from XR UK. Plus I didn't teach them NVDA techniques, I merely passed on some old gear.

It's 20°C in Edinburgh just now, that is just unacceptably warm in September. That probably seems reasonable for non-Scots so I expect an influx of climate refugees. I'm aiming for Finland.

Danny 2

Re: Confessions of a bolt cutter

Whit a weird comment, no wonder you chose anonymous. Coward.

I think there is an obvious moral distinction between breaking into a military site as a peace protester and breaking into elderly folks homes to rob them.

Danny 2

Re: Confessions of a bolt cutter

Hiya Jake,

I'm wary of responding because I was downvoted for recommending a padlock, and this rambling won't endear me.

I used to be dexterous, I could solder small cubes of wire together. I enjoyed learning about lockpicking but I never mastered it. I never spent much time learning how to pick locks because I worked around them. I invented a pocket ladder to get over MoD fences to avoid vandalism charges for breaking locks or cutting fences.

A "common criminal" I met recommended freezer spray to make locks brittle before smashing them with a hammer - unsubtle, but I was impressed someone outwith the electronics industry knew about freezer spray.

Bike theft is the most common crime in Amsterdam, the stolen bikes are sold on 'Junkie Bridge' by, you know, junkies. Most bikes in Amsterdam are stolen, and so cheap to buy second hand that it's barely worth locking. Instead people who love their bikes weld features on them to make them distinct - a neighbour had huge metal antlers on their handlebars, which was funny but obviously dangerous.

Locks give a false sense of security, but if they are easy to pick then it's a testament to human decency that they aren't picked more. Saying that I caught two local young men trying to break into my parents house and I beat them up. Funnily enough they threatened to call the cops on me. As if. Years later and they are still very polite to me in passing.

Danny 2

Re: Confessions of a bolt cutter

I used to leave a new padlock and keys whenever I cut one. I've never successfully picked a lock so kudos to you for mastering that skill. Jackets hide bolt cutters.

All the skills I learned as a peace protester would make me a formidable burglar, but luckily I am lazy and not envious.

Danny 2

Confessions of a bolt cutter

Lock picking is difficult, it's easier and quicker to use a bolt cutter to, you know, cut through the bolt.

I've cut through a load of padlocks with ease using £10 bolt cutters, mostly at military sites, and so I learned which products to buy to deter my peers.

I just gave my last one away to Extinction Rebellion Scotland so I forget the padlock brand, but it has an octagonal shaft with a stainless steel alloy. I bought mine in B&Q for about £20, and I couldn't cut through them.

I am much amused that people pay more for bike locks that have in-built alarms. They are less than useless. If your bike costs more than your lock then consider bringing it indoors.

[ETA: I don't think this is it, but it's similar ]

Court hearing on election security is zoombombed on 9/11 anniversary with porn, swastikas, pics of WTC attacks

Danny 2

Re: "My eldest sister is a soulless moron"

She would murder me if she could. I just watched 'Des', David Tennant as the serial killer Dennis Neilson - he was a Job Centre worker who my mum met and who didn't try to kill her - unlike my sister.

Danny 2

EO exam

I took the civil service EO (Executive Officer) exam when I was a teen, because my smarter older sister had taken it and got 91%.

I didn't want a job in the civil service, but I enjoyed tests and interviews and wanted to beat my sis. I got 97%, although they still didn't offer me a job because, well, my awful personality.

"Why are you here today?"

"Because I wanted to beat my sister on the test."

It was a standard intelligence test, councils used to use them to to sift applicants. You couldn't rise to middle management without passing it. I think it should be brought back. My eldest sister is a soulless moron who has risen to the top of the civil service and yet she would never have passed the EO exam, the only exam she passed was her Home Economics O Grade.

The idea of a meritocracy is meaningless unless you test the merit of the employees.

You're all wet: Drippy chips to help slash data centre power consumption and carbon costs

Danny 2

Re: 'Waste' heat?

Thermoelectrics are what you are after, not a Sterling Engine. They are not as efficient but have no moving parts to fail, and are cheaper to produce and integrate. You don't need to be efficient with waste energy, it's quantity not quality.

[My niece would tell me what the Cardi B song WAP meant. I get it now, Wet Assisted Processor]

Microsoft to charge $200 for 32 GPU cores, sliver of CPU clockspeed, 6GB RAM, 512GB SSD... and a Blu-Ray player

Danny 2

Re: why do you think it's not possible to do any of that with a PC?

@BigSLitleP

"Tribalism, just like nationalism, needs to die."

When my school made me read Fattypuffs and Thinifers" I was strongly on the side of Thinifers. In my forties I began to sympathise with Fattypuffs, now the book has been banned from schools due to body-image issues.

Ireland unfriends Facebook: Oh Zucky Boy, the pipes, the pipes are closing…from glen to US, and through the EU-side

Danny 2

Re: "does this prevent people accessing it from the US? "

On Star Trek Next Generation Data was a singular individual - should he have been called Commander Datum?

I can 'proceed without you', judge tells Julian Assange after courtroom outburst

Danny 2

Re: No fair trial in the US

@Imhotep

Um, you do know we have jury nullification in the UK too, don't you? We invented it, a few centuries before your nation existed.

We just have fewer jury trials than you do.

Danny 2

Re: Bully squads

If you mean that a flawed British justice system is better than none, well, I'd readily recognise things are much better here than elsewhere.

However, it is either just or unjust, and if it is only a 'smoke and mirrors' appearance of a judiciary then I'd be better off in Oz.

[Oh, and I don't mean Australia, and I didn't downvote you! For example, I have proof I was questioned on terrorism allegations for Non Violent Direct Action against state violence. Just last week the XR climate folk were threatened with being charged with being terrorists. That is not just ridiculous, it is chilling and telling.]

Danny 2

Bully squads

I was an extremely minor and ineffectual peace protester in the UK for four years with no serious legal repercussions, and then I exposed two police infiltrators. The police started targetting my elderly and infirm parents with thirteen visits / raids over the next seven years even though they knew I lived elsewhere and was always willing to voluntarily visit any police station. It wasn't Chechen or Belarusian or American abuse, but it was low level gangsterism.

The last time I put in a police complaint I was told that to progress it they'd have to visit my parents and take them to the station to give statements. I was "encouraged" to close the complaint.

The last time I was in court I asked to defend myself but the sheriff denied me that right, assigned a court lawyer, and banned me from even speaking in court except to confirm my name and plead. Plus I couldn't hear what the lawyers and sheriff were saying, my hearing was a bit shot. I felt like the love child of Kafka and Solzhenitsyn.

I suggest to those of you here who have great respect for the British justice system, as I used to, that is probably because it hasn't stamped down on you. Yet.

Tech ambitions said to lie at heart of Britain’s bonkers crash-and-burn Brexit plan

Danny 2

Re: State Aid????

I, for one, fully support the US import duty on Scottish single malt whisky.

In fact I'd like an equivalent Scottish 25% export duty on Scottish single malt whisky. Too much of it is leaving our shores, never to be seen again. Let them drink bourbon. (American whiskey is vodka mixed with flat Pepsi)

It really annoyed me when I found cheaper Scottish single malt whisky in the Netherlands. They already had decriminalised cannabis!

There was a two month drought of decent, cheap Islay malt recently in Scotland. We endured. Just in the past week Lidl and Aldi have been restocking it for £16.49, a pound cheaper than it was, and only £2.49 dearer than the crappiest stuff.

Digital pregnancy testing sticks turn out to have very analogue internals when it comes to getting results

Danny 2

Re: Too soon?

I was just talking about Scotland. No, joking, good catch.

Danny 2

Re: Too soon?

But would the celebratory bells go off if you are pregnant or not pregnant? Not everyone testing wants the same result.

I had an AIDs test in 1986 and I had to phone the health centre for the results. It took forever which made me edgy. When the receptionist finally had the result she said "The test is positive."

"Positive good or positive bad?"

"I don't know, I'll need to ask the doctor. Can you phone back on Monday?"

Danny 2

Too soon?

The con is stupid people think the electronic version is more accurate, but stupid people can't read the strips without help.

A better solution would be a Chilean rescue sniffer dog and a sensitive microphone to listen out for faint heartbeats.

The global birth rate is rising but less quickly and it soon will be declining. We'll peak about 10 million. Consumption of materials is rising exponentially as everyone expects the lifestyle of YouTube personalities.

Salon told to change ad looking for 'happy' stylist because it 'discriminated against unhappy people'

Danny 2

Re: I'm with Richard

Was it definitely a doctor who told you that, or just a man in a white coat?

I was tricked into the op aged 21 by an abusive partner, and dismayed to find my nurse was a former classmate.

Danny 2

Big Bangs Theory

I always hated the barber more that the dentist, because I preferred long hair because I have big ears that my older sisters mocked relentlessly.

I found a barber I could tolerate, a bit of a John Travolta type but he lowered his chat level to my obvious intolerance. I had to drop him when my dad starting going there. I got a new hairdresser who spraffed away too much, but cheap and I am used to smiling through small talk when I'd rather be silent. The trick is to ask them about them and pretend to be interested. Then my dad switched to her.

I switched to a local barber who actively demeaned with his small talk, from his first imputation I couldn't afford his highly inflated prices.

I bought a £15 set of clippers from Lidl's and have been cutting my own hair for years. I've not cut my hair since January because I've enjoyed everyone else having long hair.

Sadly, I am soon to clip my glorious long hair. Peer pressure.

Danny 2

Re: I'm with Richard

First, they don't shave your balls for a vasectomy, they just fry them in a wee frying pan. (Local anaesthetic and not a good view but I checked after and my ba'hair were a' there.

Second, my favourite ever second hand anecdote.

A (now dead) pal of mine, Kate, told me of when she got appendicitis on holiday in Turkey. She had to have an emergency operation and was drugged up for pain and waiting in her hospital bed. A white coat said he had to shave her pubes, which she consented to, because she was drugged. Then another doctor picked up a dinner tray and started banging it on the head of the first doctor.

You don't need your pubes shaved for any operation.

The first "doctor" turned out to be a sex pest well known to the actual hospital doctors.

I know that is true because she only told me that when she was drunk, she still blushed when saying it, and it made her laugh when I repeated it on her death bed.

As Amazon pulls union-buster job ads, workers describe a 'Mad Max' atmosphere – unsafe, bullying, abusive

Danny 2

In other news...

Drivers for Amazon contractor allege safety and wage abuses

Haulage drivers delivering to Amazon distribution centres across Europe allege that safety records are being deliberately manipulated and wages withheld

Danny 2

Re: Put Jeff on the warehouse floor for a week

Rent a flat above a shop,

Cut your hair and get a job.

Smoke some fags and play some pool,

Pretend you never went to school.

But still you'll never get it right

'Cause when you're laid in bed at night

Watching 'roaches climb the wall

If you called your dad he could stop it all.

Danny 2

Re: scum

They already pee in bottles to avoid being penalised for going to a toilet.

Danny 2

Re: "Self-Criticism and Ruthless Exposure of Their Own Shortcomings" --- V. I. Lenin Mandated

@stungebag (apologies for repeating an old anecdote)

I worked for Unisys in Livingston, and it was my first unionised job. One shift that was meant to have worked Sundays was found to have never turned up, yet they weren't penalised because 'union'. That behaviour gave unions a bad name.

It was still an appalling company though. All the doors were swipe card access, and only the management could reach the centre offices. That backfired because the young electronic apprentices needed to reach the female office secretaries, so they'd zap the swipe card readers with an electrostatic tester.

The most abusive company I witnessed was GE Amsterdam. I was a contractor so immune, but they'd hold weekly meetings just to berate and demean individual employees for no good reason.

Danny 2

Re: There's a simple solution

@DanielsLateToTheParty

My cousin's brother in law killed himself after working in the Dunfermline Amazon warehouse under appalling conditions. I suggested we as a family boycott Amazon, and my cousin said, "But it's just so convenient."

These are nominally left wing people. It's unsurprising that the richest person alive is one of the worst employers.

I was discussing workers rights at Amazon with my first love, now a well-to-do small business owner, and she loathed Amazon for unfair business and tax reasons. It's across the political spectrum, but we fail to act.

I no longer shop with Amazon, but I admit I still watch Amazon Prime because I get it for free.

What rhymes with 'boom' and is veritably raking it in thanks to the coronavirus pandemic?

Danny 2

It's the name

Folk who have never previously known about video conferencing adopted Zoom because they think it is new and they like the name which they heard on the news.

I remember coming up with VoIP back in '94 as an in-office joke. And being scunnered when Skype sold for billions.

Um, almost the entire Scots Wikipedia was written by someone with no idea of the language – 10,000s of articles

Danny 2

Re: Interesting

Ken, Scots for 'know', from the Dutch Kennis, knowledge.

Danny 2

Re: Double Dutch

The common words weren't what I taught my English comrades. Plus the accent was a fog screen.

I was at a meeting of international peace protestors in Scotland who were speaking in Flemish to exclude me, they must've thought I was a spy. Flemish is basically Dutch so I caught some of it. The guy ended on "Waarum?", and I chipped in, "Waarum niet?"

Why? Why not?

Their faces fell and blushed?

"Do you speak Flemish?"

"No, but I know waarum niet."

Danny 2

Re: Weegies

'Wee' is a big word in lowland Scots. I ken ye use it in English too, but it is far more significant here. Wee man, a child or pathetic adult male.

A Fife biker explained the source of the phrase the first time I heard it, back when. Your guess is probably contributory, but I trust my source. Fifers consider Glaswegians as dwarves, or hobbits at best.

[That'd make me an elf!]

Danny 2

Re: Double Dutch

The Dutch hate the Germans more than the Scots hate the English.

In the late 90s a blonde Scottish friend and her daughter visited me in north Holland. They were walking down the street when a Dutch woman washing her car turned her hose on them. She screamed WTF, and the assailant immediately apologised, saying, "Sorry, I thought you were German".

Danny 2

Re: Interesting

Tautological.

In Scotland we have a Loch Loch, plus Lochy Loch. It's akin to naming your cat Cat.

Danny 2

Re: Interesting

A Dutch colleague made a point of telling me about the Dutch raid on the Medway. He said, "They probably don't tell you about that in your English history classes"

I replied, "You do realise I am Scottish, not English don't you? I was never taught any English history. My ancestors probably cheered your victory."

Danny 2

Re: Not the robot edit I'd expected

I'm fairly sure we can write cunt here. It was a word I knew as a seven year old although I never knew it had a sexual reference, like cock. Or twat.

A twenty year old woman at Sky TV told me she was shocked when a seven year old in the street asked her, "Do you have a spare cigarette ye old cunt?". He was literally slapped down by a slightly older peer who said, "Dinnae swear. Show the old bint some respect."

Liz Fraser once walked out of a radio interview when the interviewer used "the c word". And she wynched Jeff Buckley, Californian sex god.

Wynch is an interesting word because most Scots don't recognise it (French Kiss) but it is regional. Lowland Scots isn't a simple language, it is a combination of several local languages.

Danny 2

Re: Interesting

Aye, the only folk that can pronounce Loch are Scots or Dutch smokers. And why can't English people roll their Rs (arse) ?

The definition of being Scottish isn't the colour of your skin, or where you came from, it's how ye speak.

Danny 2

Re: Where to from here?

Shock an aw: US teenager wrote huge slice of Scots Wikipedia

But Michael Dempster, the director of the Scots Language Centre based in Perth, takes a more ameliorative approach and says he is now in conversation with the Wikimedia Foundation about the prospect of properly re-editing the teenager’s contributions.

“We know that this kid has put in an incredible amount of work, and he has created an editable infrastructure. It’s a great resource but it needs people who are literate in Scots to edit it now. It has the potential to be a great online focus for the language in the future.”

I didn't even ken this existed. I edited my first Wikipedia page last week when I saw some washed out Hun had been faking the football tables to inflate Hearts and demean Hibs and Celtic. So much work for daftie sectarian vandalism.

Danny 2

Weegies

I followed the establishment of this word. It was a 1980s derogatory Fife word for Glaswegians who would holiday there, mostly spelt WeeGee or Ouijie. Wee Glaswegian. "How do you make a Ouijie board? Take away his Tamazapan"

Only Glaswegians spell it weegie, because that is how daft they are.

Another good Fife word is nectar, an amplifier of extra, as in nectar special (the most special).

I once had a stramash with the self styled "Glasgow Anarcho-Feminist collective", because they were a' ba'heids but partly due to their name. None of them were Glaswegian, two of them were police informers, and one of them strangled young women.

Danny 2

Re: fake Scots language is rapidly becoming real Scots online

That'd be the fount, or font, of wisdom. A fountain of wisdom would be spraffing it everywhere.

[Frankie Boyle : When I was a teenager my penis could spray sperm on the ceiling. Now I'm 50 it's more like Tim Robbins escaping through the sewers in The Shawshank Redemption"]

Danny 2

Death of Dreepy

A wheen of local eight year old wains were throwing stones over a garage which were hitting cars on the other side. As the only upstanding adult present I upbraided them and bid them explain themselves. Their football was on top of the lock-ups and they were trying to knock it down. "Why don't you just climb up and get it?"

They couldn't climb. I was mortified, and explained when I was their age every child in the street would climb up there every day and they should be ashamed of themselves. I asked why they didn't just give one of their peers a punty up. They didn't know what that meant so I gave a kid in a Celtic shirt a punty up so he could retrieve their ball.

I was walking away when he shouted he couldn't get down. I said, "Dreepy down!"

None of them knew what that meant.

It means dangling down from a ledge by your fingertips from a ledge to lower your drop. The word was lost and so the technique was lost.

My unco uncle told me when I was 17, "Don't take this the wrong way, but when I was your age I was more of a man than you."

How could I take that the wrong way? But I repeated it for the eight year olds who didn't know how to climb or dreepy.

Billy Connolly had a lyric about saying fuck in front of your granny - "They not only said it, they did it as well".

Danny 2

Re: Better off with Gaelic

If you see Doric written down then you can crack the code. However when it is spoken it is not just the words, it's the pronunciation. For most of my life I could understand any pigeon English speaker more than any Aberdonian.

I think I remember, but I might be wrong, that Doric was the language of the Kingdom of Northumberland which stretched up the east coast. I could Wikipedia that assertion but what's the point?

Danny 2

Re: Double Dutch

Typical acerbic Dutch, when I said I was going to night classes to learn their language I was told, "Don't learn Dutch, learn English". They couldn't understand my brogue having learned their English from the BBC World Service.

Although British English was the official language the Dutch would often break into Dutch in meetings to exclude everyone else, so I taught the English (Indians) how to speak lowland Scots so we could exclude the Dutch. If ye meet any Hindu engineers frae Reading wha speak in Scots ye ken why.

I recently taught a Spanish lass in Edinburgh lowland Scots in exchange for her teaching me Spanish. I was dead proud when she emailed me from Spain saying her family were fair flummoxed by how peely wally (pale) she was.

I used to post on forums under the pseudonym 'Drew Kitt". Even Scots didn't get the joke for years - drookit means soaking wet. Not to be confused with glaikit (stupid) or sleekit (cunning).

I reckon some of the best Scottish novels are Lewis Grassic Gibbons Sunset Song trilogy. It's not in lowland Scots, it's Doric which to most Scots is kind of like Shakespearean English to modern English weans.

Danny 2

Double Dutch

I worked in an international organisation in the Netherlands and was still getting used to Dutch pronunciation and names. A French developer asked me to look up the internal phone book and contact Poland Roos, but the name wasn't there.

Typical French, he got angry and shouted at me, "Poland Roos! Poland Roos!"

I asked him to write it down. Paul Andrews.

Danny 2

Re: Interesting

Breeks (trousers) = Broek (Dutch)

North Sea trade links were important to Scotland during centuries of war with England and presumably helped spread language.

Sounds like the black helicopters have come for us. Oh, just another swarm of FAA-approved Amazon delivery drones

Danny 2

Re: Let's put a stop to this!

Peace protestors were often buzzed by police/state drones from 2002. It was threatening and annoying so we brainstormed possible responses.

Your catapult load would require a targetting system. A catapult full of gravel would take any drone down, shotgun style, but anything that goes up comes down so that's not safe.

We considered barrage balloons, helium party balloons tethered by dent floss where the floss was the risk.

As a techie I advocated attack drones that would either deliver an EMT blast or block their navigation. (Nobody suggested explosives because, you know, peace protesters)

In the end we did nothing. Their drones were less annoying and dangerous than their helicopters.

NHS tests COVID-19 contact-tracing app that may actually work properly – EU neighbors lent a helping hand

Danny 2

Re: COVID Green on Github

There was an Irish guy on the Beeb today (sorry, a doctor maybe?) discussing the challenge facing the Republic's trace and test.

Initially they were exemplary, contacting people within a day or two, but that was when numbers were low. Now numbers have risen the delay has doubled, which you will all recognise as geometric.

The solution obviously is to bump up the number of tracers. He also said their test results were now being delayed making them less useful.

The 4 Nations (UK) and Ireland face different yet inter-related problems due to the lack of borders. Scotland is aiming for 'Zero COVID', which is torpedoed by England aiming for herd immunity. Northern Ireland seems more similar to the Republic than ever.

Norfolk's second-greatest cultural export set for return with 3-metre monument in honour of the Turkey Twizzler

Danny 2

Snood snarkey

They waited until Jamie Oliver got fat, then resurrected Bernard Matthews using genetically engineered turkey DNA to reap revenge.

Reply-All storm sparked by student smut sees school system shut down Google Classroom for up to a week

Danny 2

In a further blow to Gavin Williamson...

President Lukashenko said he doesn't recognise England's A level results as valid.

India to run optic fibre to 450,000 villages in 1,000 days and give 1.3bn a digital Health ID

Danny 2

Re: For health reasons ?

Perhaps they should add a sewer system and run the fibre in that. It's disconcerting to see people crap in the streets in a nation with a space programme.